The fruits of her labour

In a few weeks, shoppers at Loblaws, Provigo and Maxi stores in Quebec will have to pay five cents for every plastic grocery bag they take. Wine lovers have already been bringing their own bags – since Jan. 1, the SAQ has no longer given out single-use bags.

Since 2006, when Metro became the first major grocery chain in Quebec to encourage shoppers to use reusable bags, Quebecers have embraced the environmentally friendly move. More than one in three shoppers in Quebec used reusable bags in 2007, according to Statistics Canada.

Now grocery stores, pharmacies, home renovation stores and bookstores sell reusable bags. It has made it easier for shoppers to avoid plastic bags, and cut down on the more than 1 billion plastic bags that Quebecers use every year, clogging the province’s landfills.

Judy Lazar watched reusable bags catch on in Quebec, and realized that there was another place grocery stores and farmers’ markets could cut their use of plastic bags: in the produce section. Dispensers holding rolls of plastic bags are scattered among fruit and vegetable aisles, and shoppers who carry their groceries out in reusable bags often fill them up with plastic-bag-wrapped produce.

Lazar picked up some reusable grocery bags at her local supermarket a few years ago and wondered what to do about the plastic produce bags. Lazar, who had worked in Montreal’s fashion industry for more than 20 years before taking a few years off to raise her kids, had been looking for a new business opportunity.

“A year and a half ago, there were no reusable produce bags on the market,” Lazar said in an interview at her Town of Mount Royal office. “No one was selling them retail.”

So Lazar decided to make produce bags that would make grocery shopping a little more environmentally friendly. That meant taking into consideration the bags’ footprint – how the cotton used to make them was grown, where they would be manufactured and who would make them.

Lazar’s company, Credobags, makes bags using cotton grown in Turkey that is shipped to Montreal and spun into yarn here. Local workers weave the yarn into fabric, and then sew it into bags, which come in two sizes and sell for between $5 and $6 each.

Even as other companies were sending textile work overseas, where labour is cheaper, Lazar found herself looking for textile workers in Montreal. People told her she was crazy for trying to produce fabric in Montreal, that there was no way she could compete with foreign producers.

“No one is really making fabric per se in Canada anymore,” Lazar said. “The whole textile industry is gone, but there are a few people left, and I found them.”

Besides employing several local women sewers, Lazar also has a contract with Les Petites Mains in Villeray, a non-profit organization that teaches immigrant women French and gives them job experience.

“I love it,” Lazar said. “It’s all these women from different parts of the world and they’re teaching them all kinds of skills.”

The bags have been slowly taking off. In the past nine months, Lazar has sold more than 30,000 cotton produce bags, mainly in health stores, green general stores and hardware stores in Ontario and Quebec. She hopes to be in major retailers later this year, although a spokeswoman for Loblaws said the chain has no plans to phase out the plastic produce bags it supplies, nor to charge customers for them.

À Votre Santé, a natural-foods store in Montreal’s west end, began selling Credobags this month, along with another reusable bag that can be used for bulk items, like grains and rice, store employee Theresa Whitney said.

“We’re trying to cut down as much plastic as possible,” Whitney said, adding that the reusable bags are selling well.

Some people find the idea of buying a produce bag unnecessary, opting instead to skip produce bags altogether and place their fruits and vegetables loose in their shopping carts or baskets. Others reuse the plastic produce bags they already have. Lazar said she understands reducing the use of plastic produce bags like that, but notes a minority of people do so.

“I think most people just aren’t that green,” Lazar said. “They don’t get the idea of ‘no packaging.’ ”

Plus, if you’re buying something like mushrooms, it’s nice to have a container to carry them in, she said.